Ndiaye finally says out loud — or on blog — what even The Texican couldn’t quite pinpoint in so many words. Ndiaye has explained why some of my own peers don’t like this new Houston boom, which isn’t much different from past booms in the 70s and 80s. We’ve all become bitter townies, taking any chance we can to rail about how that coffee shop used to be a gay bar with a great mural and boasting about how much we’ve always loved the heat here when we have a closet full of hoodies and beanies.

Those “Newstonians” also have a lot of cute questions about the city, but that’s another blog for another day….

“Each day, dozens of people move here, the city has grown more than any other metro area in the country from 2000-2010, and Fort Bend County, on the southwestern side of the metro area, recently passed Queens County, New York as the most diverse in the country. The source of the anxiety is that we don’t like the reasons why people are coming: good jobs, cheap housing, safe neighborhoods. We hate how practical it is. We are not drawing in Patti Smiths and Joan Didions. There are no mass arrivals of Portland and San Francisco expatriates in skinny jeans and vintage dresses stepping off planes at Bush International Airport. We attract engineers from Midwestern state schools and school teachers from Florida—people who want to make a good income, and maybe get married, buy a house, and have a couple of kids,” he writes.

Bingo. What’s wrong with wanting to make some money, meet someone you wouldn’t mind dying with, moving out of your garage apartment, getting hitched, coaching a tee ball team in Pearland, and having an opinion on property tax?

This is also why Saturday and Sunday mornings there are lines at my favorite coffeehouses and taco joints. This new growth is also changing Houston’s Inner Loop nightlife. Midtown is the new Washington Avenue, which was the new Midtown before that, which was the new Richmond Strip right after the Super Bowl came to town. The night life, it ain’t no good life but it’s their life.

“There are apartments available in beautiful neighborhoods, with coffee shops and terraces on every corner for less than what New Yorkers pay for closets. Our streets are congested and our traffic can drive a Jesuit to madness, but when all the suburbanites have gone home, on evenings or on weekends, you can navigate the far reaches of the city at 70 miles per hour, like a character from Mario Kart that has just activated rainbow speed,” he adds.

Houston, no limits indeed. There really is nothing like shooting south down 288 with the Houston skyline in your rear view mirror. Seeing the same view while coming back into town on a Sunday afternoon comes a close second.

“You never leave Houston. Even if you live out your days in Brooklyn or Belize, you never really forget the grid of the highways. You never stop thinking of the first time you had tamales. You never leave behind the feeling that you once lived in a place where the prices were right and the living was easy. I type this as I prepare to move soon to one of these glitzy cities, and I know that I cannot escape the slight worry that I am making a mistake. I type this while sitting on a coffee shop patio, in 90-degree weather, trying to smack down the ‘skeetas that hover around me, and I feel like I could never truly leave this swamp. See, Houston’s not awesome, it’s real. ”

Godspeed and safe travels, Aboubacar. We’ll save you a seat at Tacos A Go Go for when you return.